


Almost Innocent Bystanders

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: My Family (And Other Dinosaurs) [26]
Category: Primeval
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-01
Updated: 2009-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 00:12:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3269498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A day out nearly gets wrecked by Liz’s third brush with an anomaly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Innocent Bystanders

**Author's Note:**

> For Kez’s birthday; she asked for these two pairings and ‘bank holiday’. Lyle is fredbassett’s. Makes heavy reference to the first of my Liz fics, If You Go Down To The Woods Today, but should be comprehensible without reference to this. Thanks to lukadreaming for the beta!

            There was a scratching noise as Jon let himself in, and then a louder noise of intrigue as he caught the scent of frying bacon.

 

            “Greedy bastard,” Liz said severely, transferring three slices of bacon to a lightly buttered roll and putting it on a large plate.

 

            “Are those all for me?” Lyle asked, dropping his rucksack and sauntering over, looming over Liz and examining the frying pan – which still had three slices of sizzling bacon in it – with interest.

 

            “No, one’s for you,” Liz said, batting at him with a spatula, “and you’re bloody lucky I remembered you were coming around this morning or I wouldn’t have cooked for you. Dad’s in the shower. I can’t believe you have to work on a bank holiday.”

 

            “Me neither,” Lyle said, his voice echoing as he went in search of Lester. “Sod’s law, eh?”

 

            As it happened, Lester was not in the shower; he had just finished shaving and was drying himself off.

 

            “You here?” Lester said dryly, rinsing off his razor and retiring into the bedroom to dress. “And only ten minutes after you said you would be, o most beloved of thorns in my side.”

 

            “Traffic jam,” Lyle explained, following him and stealing a kiss. “I left in good time, but everything was at a standstill around Embankment.”

 

            “Not anomaly related, I do hope and trust,” Lester observed, carefully selecting a tie and shirt that very nearly clashed.

 

            Lyle shook his head. “I didn’t see anything that looked like it. Liz is making bacon butties, by the way.”

 

            “I know. She insisted.” Lester winced. “She fries the bacon. I feel my arteries fur a little more every time I take a bite.”

 

            “Bollocks. It’s the only way to deal with bacon and you’re fit enough not to worry too

much.” Lyle sat down on the bed, which had – until that moment – been scrupulously neat. “Liz is looking a lot better, by the way.”

 

            Lester smiled - a rare genuine smile that would have sincerely frightened most of the ARC’s workers if they’d ever caught a glimpse of it – and nodded. “The counsellor says she’s made a lot of progress quite quickly.” He ran a hand through his hair, still smiling. “You can’t imagine how relieved I am.”

 

            Lyle’s lips twitched. “I think I can get halfway there...”

 

            “More than halfway.” Lester buckled his belt. “You were with her when she and Juliet blew up, which I think was perhaps the most – dangerous moment. We’re not out of the woods yet, but... that could have turned very nasty indeed, were Juliet less forgiving and Liz less apt at grovelling. I’m glad you were there.”

 

            Lyle winced. “Hiding behind a sofa, you mean...”

 

            “Hiding from a midget ballerina and a scrappy cadet? Shameful, Lieutenant.” Lester tied his laces and stood up, kissing Lyle on the forehead. Lyle dragged him down by his tie and kissed him properly.

 

            “Do you want your breakfast or not?” Liz demanded, flinging the door open.

 

            Lester straightened hurriedly, a dull flush painting itself over his cheeks; Lyle just grinned. “Have you no shame, you wretched child?” Lester snapped.

 

            “Nope,” Liz said, unfazed. “Seriously. Breakfast. Eat it before I do.”

 

***

 

            Lyle and Lester had been out of the door for a good two hours before Liz heard a familiar double knock on the front door and jumped up to let Simon and Juliet in. “About bloody time,” she said to Simon, kissing Juliet on the cheek by way of greeting.

 

            Juliet snickered. “Genius here got lost on the Tube.”  


            Simon pushed his floppy brown fringe out of his eyes and sniffed. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response. Liz, are you ready to go?”

 

            Liz grabbed her messenger bag, checked that it contained her keys, wallet, phone, Vaseline and other vital items, made sure that Juliet had picked up her contribution to the planned picnic, and nodded. “Where are we meeting?”

 

            “Clapham Common Tube station,” Simon said, piling out of the flat with Liz and Juliet and fishing his phone out of his pocket when it buzzed, just as Liz was locking the door.

           

            “Oh God,” Juliet said, watching Simon’s face. “What is it?”

 

            “That twat,” Simon muttered. “Ed Mackenzie. He’s invited himself along.”

 

            Liz swore violently, clutching her keys in one hand. “I can’t deal with that fucker today. I’m sorry, I can’t, I will-“

 

            “Don’t worry about Ed,” Simon assured her, tapping industriously at the keys of his phone. “I’ll deal with him. You two walk on, I’ll catch you up downstairs.”

 

            Liz muttered something unprintable, which prompted Juliet to lean against her, arm sliding reassuringly around the other girl’s waist. “I will hurt Ed if he upsets you,” Juliet told her, and tugged her gently along the corridor. “Come on.”

 

            “You’ll hurt Ed? I’m worried about me hurting Ed when I snap and break his face,” Liz snapped, threading her fingers through Juliet’s. She glanced at her girlfriend, and stopped to take a second, longer look. “You look pretty.”

 

            “You needn’t sound so surprised,” Juliet said, in tones of deepest amusement.

 

            “I’m not. You always look pretty. But... I don’t know, just...” Liz waved a hand vaguely, indicating her girlfriend’s entire person. “That’s the new dress you bought with Amandeep when I was trying on the hundred and fourth pair of jeans, isn’t it? Like... in March?”

 

            “Yes,” Juliet agreed, evidently pleased Liz had noticed. It was a very nice dress – sleeveless, made of some kind of floaty, pleated lemon yellow material with a defined waist – and she was wearing a pair of gladiator sandals that always made her already fairly excellent legs look even more awesome. A pair of sunglasses that tended to make her look like a very stylish bug (Liz had never mentioned this fact, fearing persecution) were perched on her head, keeping masses of blonde hair back.

 

            Liz ran her fingers through Juliet’s hair and called the lift. “Won’t your hair drive you nuts like that?”

 

            Juliet grimaced. “It’s a bit hot to be wearing it down, yeah. And the wind was a bit crazy earlier, I know it’s knotted already and I brushed it right through this morning. Plait it for me?”

 

            “Okay.” Liz searched her pockets and messenger bag. “I know I’ve got a hairtie here somewhere.”

 

            “Lift’s here,” Juliet pointed out, and they stepped inside the open doors just as Simon rocketed down the corridor and slipped in beside them.

 

            “Sorted?” Juliet asked.

 

            Liz took her girlfriend’s sunglasses off her head and handed them to her, gathering knotty blonde hair into three loose handfuls. “What, Ed?”

 

            Simon’s lips thinned, and his joker’s eyes hardened. “Not for certain. He’s making all kinds of promises about keeping quiet and claiming he has nowhere else to go and nothing to do.”  

 

            Liz and Juliet made identical noises of disbelief, and Liz tied off the plait. “Believe it when I see it,” Liz muttered, her voice the first rolls of thunder before a storm. “If he makes trouble-“

 

            “-Liam and I will show him the error of his ways,” Simon said smoothly. “Don’t worry. He won’t be a member of the expedition by the time we reach Clapham Common tube.”

 

            Juliet slipped her hand back into Liz’s, and squeezed it hard enough to bruise.

 

            They made their way to the Tube station and got on the first of two trains that would take them to Clapham Common station. The day was warm, so the Tube was sweltering and stuffy, especially because it was a bank holiday and everyone and their auntie was travelling. Liz cast a warning eye over the carriage, who – in the best tradition of travelling Londoners – paid no attention to the two girls whatever. There had only been one or two real negative experiences, but Liz was nothing if not wary, especially lately. Deciding that she probably wouldn’t experience homophobia in this Tube carriage, she moved a little closer to Juliet and directed a pointed question at Simon. “How the hell did Ed get himself invited?”

 

            “He picked it up from Liam somehow that we were off somewhere – you, Juliet, me, Amandeep, Liam, maybe Mark if he got his act together – which he has, by the way. Ed immediately said he wasn’t doing anything and he’d meet us there. Amandeep gave Liam a ticking-off for letting Ed find out and told Ed outright he wouldn’t be welcome, and did he really think he was friends with you any more after how he’d treated you.” Simon hesitated. “Ed said he realised he’d behaved like a twat and he felt he should... mend fences, now.”

 

            “That would be a good place to stop at,” Juliet warned, shifting the bag of picnic things in her hands.

 

            “Yeah. I think it would.” Liz leaned back against the pole for commuters to hold onto, lips thin and eyes furious.  “Tell him that in no way, shape or form do I want him there. He goes or I find a cliff and push him off it, it’s his choice.”

 

            “Yes ma’am,” Simon said ironically, saluting. “Right away, ma’am.”

 

            “You’d better,” Liz said, half-closing her eyes and waiting for the next stop to arrive.

 

            They had to run for the second Tube, but caught it easily enough, jostling through the crowd with only a little difficulty. This train was even more cramped, with standing room only, and the three grouped together in a very small space close to the doors, Simon texting madly.

 

            “Done?” Liz demanded after a few minutes. “Because we’re nearly here.”

 

            “All sorted,” Simon said with satisfaction. Liz knew Simon had never liked Ed much, but she was surprised to find he disliked him so virulently. She raised an eyebrow at him, then grabbed the bar as the train lurched to a stop.

 

            The little group piled off the Tube train and into the packed station, where they met Amandeep, Liam and Mark at the exit, all of whom – to go by what they heard as they approached their classmates – were bitching about Ed, who had apparently only just left.  They quietened as Liz, Simon and Juliet approached, and greeted them instead.

 

            “Right,” Liz said, clapping her hands together decisively and ignoring the fact that she could hear the words ‘Ed’ and ‘watch him’ being muttered between Simon and Liam, who had become alarmingly protective over the past couple of weeks. “Clapham Common, here we come.”

 

***

           

            Simon polished off the last of the cocktail sausages and collapsed languidly back onto the picnic blanket Amandeep had had the presence of mind to bring. “Mm. Are there any of those little mozzarella-y things left?”

 

            “No,” Liz said, closing her eyes against the sun and stroking Juliet’s hair almost absent-mindedly. Juliet, who had curled up and gone to sleep almost immediately after finishing her lunch, mumbled something and settled her head in Liz’s lap. “Mark finished them. Pass the carrot sticks.”

 

            Liam, who was sunning himself on the grass and undoubtedly burning more every second, flailed around for the little plastic box and then passed it over.

 

            “I think there’s still some hummus left,” Amandeep volunteered, picking through the picnic bags.

 

            “I’ll manage without,” Liz said through a mouthful of carrot, and looked up as she heard the familiar jingle of an ice-cream van. It had parked itself some way away across the open common, and a queue was already forming beside it. “Hey.” She poked her girlfriend in the side. “Anyone for ice-cream?”

 

            “No thank you,” Amandeep yawned, and began to lecture Liam (who had also declined ice-cream) on the inadvisability of sunbathing without any sun-cream when you had red hair, pale skin and a tendency to freckle.

 

            “Magnum please,” Mark said.

 

            Simon fished through his pockets for his wallet and produced a fiver. “Twister?”

 

            “Ju?” Liz said, and poked Juliet harder.

 

            “Nngh,” Juliet muttered, and peeled herself off the picnic blanket. “I’ll come with you and decide.”

 

Liz accepted a hand up from Juliet, the cash from those who wanted ice-cream, and they began to make their way to the van, which now had a good five-person queue going. There was no shortage of customers: since the weather was so nice, the park was full of families with kids, and a bunch of young men, perhaps university students, had broken up their football match for refreshments. Liz and Juliet took their places in line, chose their ice-creams and waited while a harassed au pair in charge of far too many kids at once tried to remember whether it had been four lollies and two 99 Flakes, or two lollies and four 99 Flakes. Liz, secure in the knowledge that Juliet would have memorised their order, let her mind and her eyes wander, travelling over the busy street that bordered the Common and the small, smart shops on the other side of it.

 

Her eyes snapped into focus suddenly, her back straightened and she heard a slight gasp from Juliet that told her her grip had abruptly closed on the other girl’s hand. She loosened her fingers, and tilted her head, craning her neck slightly to get a better look at the two large, intimidating jeeps that had just drawn up outside one of the little shops. Men in black uniform, heavily armed but too far away to identify, poured out of the jeeps and into one of the shops, some of them setting up a perimeter around the shop’s small door and wide glass window, which went blank as a shutter fell down, obscuring the inside of the shop to public view. Liz could see the first anxious ripples in the pattern of people moving away from the shop as if it had the plague, and was suddenly absolutely certain about what was happening.

 

“Crap,” Liz breathed, and they came to the front of the line.

 

Juliet spared a puzzled glance for her preoccupied girlfriend, then turned back to the ice-cream van and gave their order with a charming smile. Gently, she tugged the cash to pay out of Liz’s hand, obliged her to hold several ice-creams, and steered her back towards the group waiting by the picnic blanket. “What’s got into you?” she asked, peeling her mint chocolate Cornetto.

 

Liz jerked her head at the disturbance, where a police car had just drawn up next to the jeeps and a copper was having a discussion with someone she was almost certain was Lyle. “I think that’s Lyle and his merry band in there. We should leave.”

 

“What?” Juliet stopped dead, and turned to stare at it, disbelief and chilling concern written all over her cat-like face; her last encounter with Liz’s stepfather on the job had involved a very large lizard that had tried to kill all of them. “But what are they doing?”

 

“I don’t know,” Liz said. It was almost true. “We should go, seriously. I saw at least eight men go into the shop and there are four on the perimeter.”

 

“Christ!” They started jogging back to the others, and Juliet hurriedly distributed the ice-creams and gabbled an explanation of what was going on and why Liz was trying to pack up the picnic bags with one hand while holding a strawberry Cornetto in the other.

 

            Mark, remembering his last encounter with armed men in black, went white as a sheet and lost a large sheet of chocolate off his ice-cream in his panic. Amandeep scrambled to her feet, fear in her pinched face, and Liam looked totally baffled and made no move to help, but did at least stand up and get off the blanket while Amandeep rolled it hurriedly back into its bag.

 

            “Why are you all so freaked out?” Liam enquired, and had several bags dumped on him by his near-frantic girlfriend.

 

            “The last time we saw so many men in black it was after Mark had just nearly got eaten!” Amandeep snapped, and swung a backpack full of bottles of fizzy water and cans of Coke onto her back.

 

            “Eaten?” Simon said in a distinctly sceptical tone, and then glanced at the back of Mark’s legs. Mark had managed to find some sun to tan in over the past few days, and the long, whitish scars left behind by the deinonychus on the back of his legs were clearly visible. “Oh. _Oh_. This is about that thing that happened when you were on Duke of Edinburgh, isn’t it?”

 

            Liz nodded, slinging her messenger bag over her head. “I don’t think it’s the same, but either way I don’t want to know what brings the Special Forces to Clapham on a bank holiday. Seriously, let’s just go.”

 

            Within a few moments, they were at the Tube station and getting onto a train, which was just as crowded as those Simon, Juliet and Liz had arrived on. They found a clutch of three seats, and Liam, Amandeep and Juliet – those carrying the heaviest bags – sat down while the others crowded around them.

 

            “You don’t think,” Mark began awkwardly, after a few minutes of paralysing silence, “it won’t be... it won’t, right?”

 

            Liz noticed Mark reach down to scratch at the marks on the backs of his legs, and interpreted his incomprehensible words accordingly. “I don’t think it’ll be another escaped demented lizard thingy,” she reassured him.

 

            A well-modulated, soothing voice announced that the next stop was Stockwell, and Liz glanced up. “Our stop,” she said, and relieved Juliet of one of her bags, making to move away. “Julie, are you coming? See you guys tomorrow. It was fun,” she added, quite truthfully.

 

            “Bye,” Juliet said cheerfully, sharing out a smile amongst the others, and following Liz off the train. They had agreed to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening together; their respective sets of parents, with the exception of Liz’s mother Kathy, were going out for supper, so Emily could pick Juliet up and take her home from the flat in Battersea.

 

            This time, the second train wasn’t due for another couple of minutes, so they stood on the platform, hanging around in companionable silence. They found some free seats on the Tube when it arrived, so both sat down and rested the other bags on the seats next to them and on the grubby floor. Juliet leaned her head against Liz’s shoulder, blue eyes contemplative, and Liz bumped her gently. “Oi. Don’t you dare fall asleep.”

 

            “Shan’t,” Juliet promised, and straightened up slightly. “Do you know when the parents are getting back?”

 

            “Reservation’s at seven,” Liz said. “I wouldn’t count on seeing them before ten o’clock, if I were you.”

 

            “Mm,” Juliet said, and smiled cryptically.

 

            Liz was about to ask her what she was thinking, but the train drew up at the platform and they were off, walking the ten minutes to the building Liz and her father lived in. The concierge, perfectly familiar with the pair of them, ignored them disdainfully as they went up in the lift and found their way to flat 42, where Liz unlocked the door and let the pair of them in, banging it behind them.

 

            “Phew,” Juliet said succinctly, set down the bags she was carrying on the floor, and collapsed over the back of a sofa.

 

            Liz snickered, and moved the bags to the breakfast bar, where she could deal with them later. “Want a drink?”

 

            “I’m fine,” Juliet said.

 

            Liz took down a glass for herself and filled it with water, tugging off her shoes before draining the glass. “God, it’s hot out there.”

 

            Juliet made a contented noise, and tugged the hairtie out of her hair, running her fingers through it and coming up against several large snags. “Can’t get enough of it.”

 

            “I’d suggest we go out to the park, but I think we’ve had the best of the day.” Liz tucked her shoes into the shoerack, and unbuckled Juliet’s gladiator sandals for her. Juliet kicked absently at her.

 

            “That tickles!”

 

            “Oh?” Liz smirked and slid her fingers up Juliet’s calf, and this time the kick connected. She yelped and laughed. “Ticklish?”

 

            “You know it,” Juliet said, disentangling herself from the sofa and standing up. She glanced out of the window. “I think we’ve had the sunshine for today.”

 

            Sure enough, grey skies were approaching from across the river, and the breeze that had knotted Juliet’s hair had – if the way the trees on the other side of the river were swaying was anything to go by – picked up considerably. A cloud fell across the sky, and the flat went dark. Juliet shivered, and Liz switched on a light.

 

            “Do you want me to find you a jacket?” Liz asked.

 

            Juliet shook her head. “Let’s drag that blanket onto the sofa and watch a film.”

 

            “Sounds like fun,” Liz said absently, refilling the glass of water. “Pick a DVD. I’m not sure the blanket’s dry, though; Dad ran it through the washing machine yesterday.”

 

            Juliet nodded affirmatively and went to the shelves that held an extensive DVD collection; she hesitated for a moment, then chose _Four Weddings And A Funeral_ and started to persuade the DVD player to play it. By the time Liz came back with the blanket, she was slouching comfortably on the sofa, the movie up on the screen.

 

            “Great,” Liz said, and collapsed onto the sofa, flinging the blanket over both of them. “Turns out Dad put it in the dryer last night,” she said in explanation, and snuggled up to Juliet, who smiled at her cuddly mood and tangled her legs with Liz’s under the blanket.

 

            On screen, Hugh Grant had an unpleasant wake-up call, and Liz slid her arms around Juliet’s waist and kissed the back of her neck, settling in to watch the film.

 

***

           

            Some time later, the credits rolled, and the girls sighed and stretched. Juliet snuggled back into the blanket, enjoying the warmth left by an hour and a half wrapped in the fleecy blanket. “Warm,” she almost purred, disappearing in the blanket up to the nose.

 

            Liz laughed, tugged the blanket down, and kissed her full on the mouth; Juliet reciprocated enthusiastically, and pulled a face when Liz drew back and pointed out that if they ever wanted to eat supper, she should start cooking now. Nonetheless, she got up – blanket still wrapped around her – and perched on the counter while Liz started to pull things from the fridge – salmon fillets, peas, oven chips.

 

            “Liz...”

 

            “Yes?” Liz bent over to rummage through the pots and pans in the drawer, and selected two. “Something wrong?”

 

            “Not wrong,” Juliet demurred. “Just... on D of E, that wasn’t a lizard that had escaped from a private collection, was it?”

 

            Liz laid the two pots carefully on the counter, turned the grill on and filled the kettle. She felt cold all of a sudden; she and Juliet had often discussed the details of that failed expedition, particularly early on when they were still just friends, but always with the assumption that Jenny Lewis had told the truth about what had attacked the children. She had always had a vague inkling that Juliet – who was, after all, in the top set for most of her classes and expected to pick up a string of A*s at GCSE – knew, or suspected, more than she had ever let Liz know. But Juliet had never confronted her with it, and Liz had never brought the subject up. She could have played a double game with it, saying _she_ didn’t know what it was, but Juliet would pick up on that lie easily.

 

            “I don’t know what it was,” Juliet added, slowly and carefully. “I’ve never tried to find out. I don’t want to know why it was there, loose in a wood, of all places. And I swear I will never, _ever_ tell anyone that I think it was anything other than a weird lizard.”

 

            Liz took down the salt and pepper, thinking. What would Juliet do if she said nothing? Could she lie outright without Juliet knowing? No; out of the question. Her mouth had gone dry, and she swallowed convulsively, trying to moisten her throat; she felt as if she couldn’t speak. “No,” she said, and her theory was borne out, because it came out like a croak. “No, it wasn’t.”

 

            She turned back to Juliet, wrapped in a blanket, who was looking at her with unaccustomed solemnity. “Do you know what it was?” Juliet asked softly.

 

            Liz nodded jerkily. God, her father would kill her if he knew.

 

            Juliet nodded in response, slow, considering, and then held her arms out to Liz, the blanket falling aside. “C’mere.”

 

            Liz went over to her, standing between Juliet’s knees, and accepted the hug, burying her face in Juliet’s chest and wrapping her arms so tightly around Juliet’s waist she thought the other girl would complain. Juliet didn’t.

 

            “Please don’t ever tell me what it was,” Juliet whispered in her ear. “I don’t want to know. Please.”

 

            “I won’t,” Liz promised, and exhaled shakily. For a moment then she’d been sincerely afraid that Juliet was going to confront her with a demand for the truth of what had happened almost two years ago - quietly, but still confront her – and she’d have to deny it, and she’d lose Juliet, too. And she couldn’t deal with that. Not after... earlier.

 

            In her mind’s eye, Liz’s counsellor looked disappointed, and she rephrased. Not after Jamie.

 

            “It’s going to be fine,” she said out loud, somewhat muffled by the fabric of Juliet’s dress.

 

            “What?” Juliet said, and let her go.

 

            Liz stepped back, and rubbed her hands on her jeans. She smiled at Juliet, and it was only a little bit tight and tense. “I said, it’s going to be fine.”

 

            Juliet smiled broadly in return, wrapping the blanket back around herself. “I know.”


End file.
